Engrenages

I stumbled across this looking for to improve my French, I've ended up being gripped by the characters. There is a unifying theme but every week there is more blood and seediness and sub-plotted nastiness. It's enough to put one off Paris, however, you do get a vivid impression of reality as in "NYPD" and such work as Steve Bochco is famous for. The photographic effect is nearly monochrome, in keeping with the subject matter. Believe me this not a laugh a minute show, but it is a correction to the romantic view of France that Francophiles like me have. As a cop show it works, although there are enormous differences in legal procedures from those I know. There is also a cynical view of the wielding of power, both judicial and political. Aside from the action there is an indefinable Parisian gloss on the actors, it's no wonder falling into bed happens so easily, all the main leads are good looking and even the cops have a certain "je ne sais quoi".I am hooked on this series to find out what is going to happen to the main characters both good and bad.

Engrenages is a Paris-based police procedural making no concessions to the easy-viewing requirements which deaden its English speaking equivalents. Dowdy police, incompetent lawyers, crims in grey shading into the deepest black. Acting, camera-work, lighting and print quality is imaginative and thorough. Each episode had an exemplary cliff-hanging or shock ending. The rather delayed and somewhat cryptic sub-titles make it tough for non-native speakers, but it has done wonders for my bog-French. Sheer pleasure: the news that they are shooting a new series is excellent. Lets hope it goes out again on BBC3 or 4 - much too demanding, even for BBC2.

Saw episode three of season 2 last night and I can vouch that this one is turning into a real potboiler like season 1. The series works on the basis of one big plot line and a series of more minor ones which link together. Sometimes, a new minor case is solved in a single episode like the "echangistes" (wife swappers) or the gay test pilot last night, or it is carried over to the next episode. Again, like last season, the police are morally fragile like the criminals but invariably come good, the defense lawyers are on the crooked side and the crims vary between violent, amoral wrongdoers and vile, completely sadistic and downright evil wrongdoers. There are some brilliantly funny moments too. As for 'racial stereotyping' commented on earlier, grow up! That's absolute b*llocks. Lots of non-white people live in Paris so some of them will be criminals n'est ce pas? Watch out for gorgeous moneygrabbing redhead Maitre Carlsson who is getting involved with helping arch criminals and getting paid 3000 euros per case instead of 300 and buying loads of new outfits. Expect a big showdown between Laure and her before the end of the season. This is great TV, far superior and much less formulaic than CSI NY/LV/Miami. Give it a go. I for one, am hooked.

While the approach is not new, the execution is excellent.

Firstly the stories interweave and become more engrossing with their machinations, the "engrenages".

Secondly the pace is engaging so its impossible to foresee the next part, and that is because it's well written and intelligently for the viewer; not disguised by quick cuts to dazzle the eye but then frustrate by its tedium or obviousness.

Thirdly, the cast is right and well directed. Characters are alive with a range of human flaws. Maybe Albert Camus was the script editor overseeing the lines of each character's arc.

Unlike some police dramas this one doesn't pull its punches - quite literally - and for those of us all too bored with the US legal system, the presentation of the way the French one does its business, is another interesting aspect to the show.(Along with all the slang.) And finally, watching Caroline Proust and Audrey Fleurot (the former plays a strong brigade police captain; the latter plays a lawyer without morality) is the coup de grace.

Series 1:

Magnifique! - gritty French police procedural buried on BBC4, each episode enmeshing you in a darker and darker world of crime, pain, and - as everywhere - a convoluted legal system that is best summed up by a brief exchange mid-series: "It's cruel." "It's only justice." With great performances and a coldly verité mise en scene, this holds its own among the best US & UK police/legal dramas. Oh, and need I say how refreshing it is to see a non-US drama on British screens? A large cast perform excellent dialogue, an engrossing single theme backed up by numerous sub plots, each one driving the characters forward as all the best drama should. The lead characters are attractive/repellent as required, but always interesting, without looking like an advert for a shampoo. In fact there's none of that slippery high-gloss (where every 'goodie' is always right, and never makes a mistake) that has marred some US series. Spiral attracted a good deal of support on BBC comment pages and is already being replayed on BBC4, with series two on the way. If it doesn't get a showing here there may be a riot.

Series 2:

Now season two is over - all too quickly - I'm left actually gasping for more. It's the kind of show that makes the rash of 'CSI' type programmes looking plastic and rather basic. Is it because I'm so cynical that this show suits my way of thinking about the world so well? That dark, messy, morally ambivalent universe they live in is recognisable even past the cultural differences, such as the astonishing blurring of the boundary between investigative police work and judgement – it's not so much uniquely French as uniquely modern. I recognise this world: you could find desperate council estates and desperate police departments just like it all over the less photogenic parts of London and the UK. And as for the relationships – they're as fleeting, unresolved and problematic as everybody's are.

I wasn't sure if they could top the tour-de-force complexity and classy storytelling of season one; and I'm not sure they did; but it doesn't matter - the quality is still so high, and the series-long story arc so engrossing, that you don't waste too much time comparing them. Some familiar faces, and some new characters, keep things ticking along nicely. My only criticism really is that the 'villains' (as if it were really possible to separate them from anybody else!) of season one were so nasty, so venal, so atrociously amoral, that it was always going to be difficult to find new villains that didn't make you wonder where the bad stuff was happening. This lot were kind of old school. The final episode did leave me slightly confused and was I think underwritten in the haste to get to the end. Isn't the crucial difficulty of policing - everywhere - precisely that no one ever does really have that last minute change of heart, so that les flics must tread their dirty path alone?